James F. Smith
Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: 617-495-7831
Fax: 617-495-8963
Email: james_smith@hks.harvard.edu
June 12, 2013
Matthew Bunn Promoted to Professor of Practice
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Matthew Bunn, an associate professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, has been promoted to the rank of professor of practice, effective July 2013.
Bunn leads the Managing the Atom research project in the school’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The project is the hub of Harvard’s work on nuclear policy issues. Bunn's research interests interests include nuclear theft and terrorism; nuclear proliferation and measures to control it; the future of nuclear energy and its fuel cycle; and innovation in energy technologies.
Belfer Center Director Graham Allison said: “The Center is proud of Matt as an outstanding model of the combination of analysis and practice to which we aspire, as a leader in research activities at the Center, and as a colleague and friend.”
June 5, 2013
Stephen W. Bosworth Joins Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center as Senior Fellow
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Ambassador Stephen W. Bosworth, who transformed Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy during his 12 years as dean, is joining Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as a senior fellow. Belfer Center Director Graham Allison said Bosworth would bring to the Kennedy School a wealth of experience as a career diplomat, with a long focus on Asia and the Korean peninsula, areas of intense interest for the Belfer Center.
(White House Photo)
Spring 2013
Spotlight on Gary Samore
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In the complex world of the United States government, it’s rare for a lone White House official to oversee a real change in direction on a major policy issue. Gary Samore not only helped reshape U.S. policy on one issue; he did so with two immense national security challenges during his four years as President Obama’s Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction Counter-Terrorism and Arms Control.
January 29, 2013
President Obama's WMD "Czar" Appointed Executive Director of Belfer Center
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Gary Samore, President Obama’s Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction Counter-Terrorism and Arms Control, has been appointed Executive Director (Research) for Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. A former fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program, Samore has served for the past four years as the principal advisor to the President on all matters relating to arms control and the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation and WMD terrorism.
November 2, 2012
"Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis for Today’s Crises"
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s view, “the significant unknowns” during the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly catapulted John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev into nuclear war. For former diplomat Nicholas Burns, the principal take-away from the crisis was the importance of giving an adversary a way out of a confrontation short of complete surrender. Allison and Burns were panelists on Oct. 14 at a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to consider the modern lessons flowing from the missile crisis. The event kicked off an intensive series of seminars and workshops for scholars from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to mark the 50th anniversary of the missile crisis. Panel moderator Juliette Kayyem, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy, reminded the audience that the missile crisis is often framed through the myth of the tough American president staring down the Russian foe and making him blink. Kayyem said that version fails to capture the nuanced secret diplomacy and the American concessions that made a deal possible.
Summer 2012
Spotlight: William Tobey
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
William H. Tobey, spotlighted in the Summer 2012 Belfer Center newsletter, is a senior fellow in the Belfer Center, and is director of the Center’s U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. He joined the Belfer Center in 2009 after serving in senior counterproliferation roles in the George W. Bush Administration. In March, Tobey was named chairman of the board of directors of the World Institute for Nuclear Security.
Spring 2012
Paul Doty's Legacy Lives on Through Influential Journal
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
As soon as Paul Doty launched what is now Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 1974, he began planning a scholarly journal on international security. He shrugged off colleagues’ concerns that there would be little market for such a journal.Thirty-six years after the first issue appeared in the summer of 1976, the Belfer Center’s quarterly International Security consistently ranks No. 1 or No. 2 out of over 70 international affairs journals surveyed by Thomson Reuters each year.
March 23, 2012
New Study Finds Four-Year Nuclear Security Effort Making Major Progress But Won't Complete the Nuclear Security Job
Press Release
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
On the eve of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, a new study finds that an international initiative to secure all vulnerable nuclear stockpiles within four years has reduced the dangers posed by many of the world’s highest-risk nuclear stockpiles. But the new analysis, by researchers with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, also concludes that much will remain to be done to ensure that all nuclear weapons and material are secure when the current four-year effort comes to an end.
Photo by Tom Fitzsimmons
September 7, 2011
"9/11 Ten Years On: Experts Urge Greater Diplomacy"
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
U.S. policymakers should use the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks as an opportunity to shift from a military-driven “global war on terror” to a policy built more on diplomacy, outreach and persuasion, panelists told an audience of students, faculty and community members at a John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on September 6. The Forum, titled “9/11: Ten Years On,” included former government officials and current Kennedy School faculty members Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, and Juliette Kayyem, along with Michael Leiter, until recently the director of the National Counterterroirsm Center.
June 8, 2011
The U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Newsletter: April - May 2011
Newsletter
By Simon Saradzhyan, Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Belfer, ISKRAN Complete Groundbreaking Joint Assessment of Nuclear Terrorism Threat; G-8 Extends Partnership to Prevent Spread of WMD Beyond 2012; Obama and Medvedev Discuss Nuclear Security and Counterterrorism; “Preventing the Next Fukushima”; more.
